A Sudanese military source revealed that a Saudi request to deploy groups from the Al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade to Yemen was rejected. This brigade, fighting alongside the Sudanese army, has a record of violations in schools and converting educational facilities into military deployment sites. The international community has designated the brigade as a terrorist organisation.
The brigade's strategy involves systematically targeting children and young people in schools. In July 2026, a commander from the brigade delivered a speech to students in a classroom, filled with language of revenge and threats. This incident was linked to public threats made by Abu Karam, the former Director of Education in Gezira State, who warned teachers that they would be replaced by brigade members if they went on strike.
The Sudanese National Human Rights Observatory asserts that the brigade continues to forcibly recruit children from schools and transfer them to military training camps in the Green Zone in Khartoum. The organisation has obtained visual evidence supporting this allegation, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Experts believe that the objective of these practices is not necessarily to recruit children for immediate combat, but rather to mobilise them through slogans and ideological messaging in preparation for the next phase. Hatem Elias, a member of the judicial body of the Sudanese Alliance for Justice, notes that the presence of the brigade in schools represents a continuation of the approach adopted by the Islamist movement since Bashir came to power.
Under Bashir, the Islamist regime made the education system a central mechanism for reproducing its ideology. Following the regime's ouster in 2019, this mechanism was never fully dismantled. The war created favourable conditions for its reactivation: teachers' strikes created a vacuum, the militias filled it, and children became the target.
The consequences of infiltrating schools extend to creating a structural obstacle to the peace process. Analyses indicate that the ideological indoctrination practised by Islamist militias complicates the peace process because Islamists do not want to end the war unless they can return to power. This means that even if a ceasefire arrangement is reached, the network will remain capable of undermining any peace plan it does not accept.
The presence of the Al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade in Sudanese classrooms is a carefully planned strategy: controlling the educational sphere to ensure the continuity of the ideology, engaging with children to secure a future supply of recruits, and filling the vacuum left by the retreating state to guarantee a presence that cannot be ignored in any post-war political order.
Key points
- The Al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade is targeting children and young people in schools to ensure a loyal and indoctrinated generation.
- The brigade's presence in schools represents a continuation of the approach adopted by the Islamist movement since Bashir came to power.
- The infiltration of schools creates a structural obstacle to the peace process, complicating efforts to achieve lasting peace in Sudan.
